By now, most Americans have likely heard about the July 4th tragedy in central Texas.
In the early hours of Independence Day, intense thunderstorms dumped up to 15 inches of rain in parts of Kerr County in just a few short hours. The Guadalupe River surged more than 26 feet in 45 minutes, overwhelming everything in its path. So far, the resulting flash floods have claimed 70 lives.
Families sifted through waterlogged debris Sunday and stepped inside empty cabins at Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp ripped apart by flash floods that washed homes off their foundations and killed at least 70 people in central Texas.Rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain continued their desperate search for the missing, including 11 girls and a counselor from the camp. How many more remain unaccounted for across the Texas Hill Country and beyond remains unclear as authorities haven’t given an estimate even though it has been three days since the storm began pounding the state.
Sadly, the Democrats and their eco-activist supporters are politicizing the disaster in an effort to mar President Donald Trump’s magnificent July 4th celebrations as well as to create a narrative that will make the Guadalupe River flood into Trump’s Katrina.
The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the nation’s atmospheric research programs could set U.S. forecasting back a generation or more, a cadre of retired federal hurricane, weather and ocean scientists warns.The budget proposed by the White House for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is almost half what it was a year ago, and eliminates all funding for the agency’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, the division that coordinates and conducts weather and climate research across the nation.“It will stop all progress” in U.S. forecasting, said James Franklin, who retired in 2017 as chief of the National Hurricane Center’s forecast specialists.
This narrative is built on a foundation of lies. Furthermore, I believe that eco-activism that has led to the destruction of dams and flood protections in order to “save fish” and “preserve nature” may lead to more of these tragedies in the future.
To begin with, the National Weather Service (NWS) had extra staff on duty and issued a series of warnings, including a flood watch at 1:18 p.m. on July 3 and a flash flood emergency in the early hours of July 4, urging immediate evacuation to higher ground.
The NWS office in New Braunfels provides forecasts for Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding areas. Typically, the office would have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, but during the event, they had up to five staff members present. This increase in staffing is standard practice for significant weather events, with additional personnel brought in on overtime or held over to ensure adequate coverage.
“There were extra people in here that night, and that’s typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,” [Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office] said.
However, it turns out that Kerr County does not have a flash flood warning system in place.
….When asked about how people were notified in Kerr County so that they could get to safety, Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said: “We do not have a warning system.”When reporters pushed on why more precautions weren’t taken, Kelly responded: “Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming.”
This is an especially troubling lack of emergency preparedness. The Guadalupe River has a substantial floodplain and has been hit with this type of disaster previously.
In addition to missing emergency preparedness opportunities, the region lacks important infrastructure that can be critical to minimizing damage caused by surges in rivers and tributaries caused by massive storms. While the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) operates several dams on the Colorado River, these primarily protect areas downstream, such as Austin, and do little to prevent flash flooding along the Guadalupe and its tributaries.
Additionally, many dams are in need of maintenance.
Currently, there are 181 dams that need repair, and 518 dams that need rehabilitation and upgrade to meet high hazard criteria. The Structural Repair and Rehabilitation Grant Program is addressing this growing backlog by providing state grant funds to provide 95% of dam repair cost and 98.25% of dam upgrade cost, and matching funding for federal projects through the Dam Rehabilitation Program and the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program of the Texas NRCS.Since fiscal year 2014, TSSWCB has provided approximately $22.5 million in state funding to match approximately $78.2 million in federal funding for repair and rehabilitation activities. Repair and rehabilitation/upgrade of dams is costly. Current estimated repair need in Texas is $135 million, and rehabilitation/upgrade need is $2.0 billion. These numbers are only expected to grow as dams continue to age, and urban development continues to spread throughout Texas. Over the past 6 years, an average of 21 dams per year have been reclassifiedfrom low hazard to high hazard due to urban development downstream.
I would like to wrap up this piece by noting that dams are critical in preventing catastrophic floods. Therefore, when environmentalists celebrate the destruction of these critical pieces of infrastructure, they are setting up communities to face devastating flash floods.
Ignoring the realities of the reasons behind the Guadalupe River flood disaster to craft the “Trump Katrina” narrative is as dangerous as it is shameful. It also leaves Americans vulnerable to policy choices created by those making that accusation, which could lead to more such incidents.
It is also a bad look that is going to make the Democratic Party look more desperate and weak than it already is.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY